2020 Styrian Grand Prix - Spielberg, 10-12 July

[Pyrone89]

So did Stroll. I am talking actual race long performances.

[dans79]

So did Stroll. I am talking actual race long performances.

The 2013 williams was way worse than the 2017 williams. The 2013 williams finished in the points 2 times, the 2017 one did it 20 times.

[ringo]

Has Bottas ever been known as a good wet driver?

Known to be good in slippery conditions.

Bottas is an elite level driver. He doesn't have any weaknesses technically. His calmness and lack of ruthlessness is the only thing he is lacking. But technical i don't think he is a pushover for any of the other drivers on the grid.
Hamilton is making him look respectable and a little ordinary, but looking on his performances and results, he is getting more out of the car than most other drivers get out of theirs.

[langedweil]

Well, reading through those last 15/20 pages is another 60mins of life wasted with Ham/Ver bashing/praising on a debilitating level ..

Saw more qually laps today than there are usually in the first 10 races, had great fun. Outstanding mix up of the field, youngsters stepping up ..

But this part of the forum, no es normal. One post used the term cancel-culture to point at certain behavior; spot on.
There's a few that keep going ..

Hope it's going to be fun tomorrow, and no merc just escapes into the distance for 71 laps.

[Moore77]

Just imagine being Bottas, on a high since Sunday, having the upper hand on Friday and then.... back to reality and a bit further. Albon is the other driver with a considerable gap to his teammate, but that's more in line with expectations. But 1.4 seconds on your team mate... that are times from long long ago.

I am not surprised, Hamilton typically has over 1 second gaps to p2 muchless to his teammate in most if not all wet qualifying. People often forget the performances throughout the years.
He is just on a different level in the wet. I chuckle seeing attempts to explain why he went so fast, DAS, and redbull "weaknesses" and all that. The man just knows what to do with an F1 car in the wet, and the other drivers haven't figured it out.

To be fare to Bottas, it's claimed his right front brake glazed over. However I think might have been down to how he approached qualifying. He pushed hard on his very first timed lap, Lewis looks to have spent 1 or 2 laps babying the car before he started pushing hard. I assume he did this to slowly build the tires & brakes up to temp, and to ensure he had a good gap.

If enough heat is not put into the breaks consistently from the time they are out of garage, they glaze. So, while Hamilton was not going full on for the first couple of laps, he must have been doing something to build heat into the breaks, while nursing the tyres. Hard to understand what all different things he was doing.

But funny enough, no other driver on grid complained about it and Mercedes has one of the smallest break cooling ducts on the grid, which means they need less work to heat up and doesn't cool as fast as others!

[donskar]

Was hoping for discussion about Styrian GP. Instead found another fanboy thread. Any thoughts about Ver pressing Ham? Bottas' strategy? And potential miracles (again) for Ferrari? How about Norris? What can we expect form him? Are the pink Mercedes for real?

[search]

Ocon. Also wow. Anyone who says this session was all about the car needs to explain how a near rookie, who has just taken a year off, with no real time in the car (and months since testing), no familiarity with the design ethos of the car, no time to build stressed relationships in the team and driving a Renault ended up 5th.

he is pretty good in the wet, yeah. 3rd wet F1 Qualifying in his career (if I didn't miss any), 3rd time in the Top 5.

The "used" tires he mentioned were only two laps old though, so I don't think it was a major disadvantage. The fastest times were set on lap ~8-9 or so anyway in the end.

[siskue2005]

[Pyrone89]

So did Stroll. I am talking actual race long performances.

The 2013 williams was way worse than the 2017 williams. The 2013 williams finished in the points 2 times, the 2017 one did it 20 times.

So NOW suddenly relative car performance matters?

[ENGINE TUNER]

https://i.redd.it/792ni9r569a51.png

Q3 was the slowest of the 3 sessions.

[Restomaniac]

Just watching Qualy again and I think I’ve figured the confusion on why Verstappen was able to appear to improve through waved Yellows.......He didn’t because the stopped car was in turn 4. Why the hell they flagged it on the system in S3 I have no idea.

[Pyrone89]

Not the first time the system is off location. Normally that happens when it is on the edge of sectors but this time I cannot see and explanation .

[Fulcrum]

Pretty mega lap from Hamilton under the circumstances. A few things worth pointing out.

• The Q3 grid order is inversely correlated with number of laps recorded. Doing an extra lap or two probably helped to familiarize the driver with conditions, gave them extra chances to hook up a lap, and put their tyres in the right window at the right time.

• Hamilton's qualifying time was set later in the session than anybody else. I suspect he made the best of what he had at exactly the right time. Bottas definitely did not.

• By comparison with other onboard footage, Hamilton's car looked extremely stable.

• Barely any steering correction out of turn 1, and little wheel spin.

• He took an extremely wide line into the hairpin (officially turn 3) at the top of the hill, some correction upon application of throttle on exit, but relatively little wheel spin.

• Turn 4, some twitching, but again, quite stable, and really early throttle application.

• Turn 6, had two bites at the wheel, but no opposite lock.

• Turn 7 and 8, probably the only wobbly moment during the lap, fighting the car to generate change in direction.

• Turn 9 and 10. Very controlled.

Its difficult to point at any moment in isolation as the differentiator in lap time. I suspect everybody else made mistakes, while Hamilton made observably few (if any).

[Moore77]

Pretty mega lap from Hamilton under the circumstances. A few things worth pointing out.

• The Q3 grid order is inversely correlated with number of laps recorded. Doing an extra lap or two probably helped to familiarize the driver with conditions, gave them extra chances to hook up a lap, and put their tyres in the right window at the right time.

• Hamilton's qualifying time was set later in the session than anybody else. I suspect he made the best of what he had at exactly the right time. Bottas definitely did not.

• By comparison with other onboard footage, Hamilton's car looked extremely stable.

• Barely any steering correction out of turn 1, and little wheel spin.

• He took an extremely wide line into the hairpin (officially turn 3) at the top of the hill, some correction upon application of throttle on exit, but relatively little wheel spin.

• Turn 4, some twitching, but again, quite stable, and really early throttle application.

• Turn 6, had two bites at the wheel, but no opposite lock.

• Turn 7 and 8, probably the only wobbly moment during the lap, fighting the car to generate change in direction.

• Turn 9 and 10. Very controlled.

Its difficult to point at any moment in isolation as the differentiator in lap time. I suspect everybody else made mistakes, while Hamilton made observably few (if any).

Hamilton had to back off in the penultimate lap as Bottas was dropping behind. When the last lap started, he was 6 seconds behind Bottas and passed the start lights 5 seconds before they went red. Not sure if that was ideal.

Throughout the session, he was taking turn 1 carefully and that wasn't different for his last lap either. He wasn't being too greedy on throttle and was putting just enough for controlling wheel spin. Turn 9 and 10, he was getting good traction without any wheelspin.

Largely it was good braking, carrying good amount of speed through turns, smooth throttling and avoid being greedy on curbs. Comparatively, he was having less wheel spin out of hair pin. But he was being patient there.

[Mogster]

How about Norris?

Lando has a back injury that seems to be causing him a lot of discomfort while driving. I’d be surprised if we see much from him today. It could make the rest of the year difficult as with the season being so compact it’s hard to see how he can recover properly.